So, I'll just make sure that you know... from this moment on... for EVERY single Hip Hop Thursdays, there's going to be a PRIZE! It's 5 Itty Bittys to 3 RANDOM comments from all the participating hops. The more blogs you visit and comments that you leave, the more chance you'll have of winning the prize! Itty Bittys are $6.50 each, so yeah, that's a pretty awesome prize ;)

SOOO cute, isn't it? I just loved it so much, I had to make something right away! I knew these would go PERFECTLY with my October Afternoon 9-5 papers that I've been hoarding, waiting for the right moment to come :)

I have lots of pics, so I'm warning you in advance! :)

I thought that it would be super cute to take a modern phone and combine that with retro looking papers. I bet that girl in the phone can't wait until her work is done to see her love! :)

If you notice the date, it's today!!! Yep, it's a card from a modern day world :)

...and here's the altered clipboard that I made! (Hope that you're not sick of seeing my altered clipboards yet!)

These stamps were perfect to create a clipboard - where you can organize your bills and errands that you need to get done.

I took strips of papers, and washi tape to make the base of the clipboard.

Here's 'I'm a good girl' clip - all caught up, everything paid :)

...and here's the 'oops' clip - hopefully, not too much will sit inside this one!

...and if you spend over $40 in the store, you get a choice of background stamp! They are both SO cute - one is Grade School Tablet (looks like lined paper!) and the other one is 'just a little CLICKY' (super fun retro camera background!)

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

I've been dying to make something Christmas related... (needed a break from Halloween stuff! Of course, I'll definitely have more Halloween projects to share!) and thought that I'd play with one of my recent stamp set purchase, 25 days of Christmas. This set is so my style... a little vintage, and has a good mix of sentiments, images, and of course, pennants!

I had some beautiful Christmas papers from Echo Park (Season's Greetings) that I thought that it would go perfectly with these stamps, and decided to create a bit of a collage kinda card!

I just love making these types of cards - full of embellishments and detail! (It's a great way to show off my Unity stamps, too!) I added some stitching, inking and distressing of the borders by hand crumpling it.

With the pennants, I paper pierced each that was stamped onto various papers. They look so lovely! Oh, and speaking of pennants... have you seen the NEW Unity Challenge of the Month yet? I'm hosting that one, and it's anything PENNANTS and BANNERS, so yeah, come and link up all those beautiful Unity projects! I would LOVE to see!

I love clustering embellishments together... adds so much interest to the card!

I am all for making handmade Christmas cards and have been doing them for the past 10 years. Kinda stresses me out trying to make so many, but always feel so proud of my accomplishment, too!

"From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to anotherThe warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other."

-Emily Matthews

Hope that you loved my card, I'll give you the links to the stamps I used in case you want to add them onto your wishlist!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Hey all! Happy Sunday which means it's a brand new Stamp of the Week for Unity Stamp Company... and I'm also here today to spread my love to all the teams that I belong to and to my friends!

This week, we have an adorable image created by super talented Angie Blom of our design team! (She's an artist, too, and creates many of their stamp images! Cool, right?)

I pulled out my Copics once again, and instead of making this all pastel-ly? I decided to color it in muted dark colors... hoping that it would match my October Afternoon papers. I think it did! Here's my card:

A little different from my usual coloring that I've done in the past, but I like it!

So, yes, if YOU are the Stamp of the Week member... expect to get this wonderful stamp in your mail this week! If not, you can totally sign up here!

...and did you notice the flair that I used?

It's from the Paper Play Studio!!! Handmade by Tamara from Happy Life, Crafty Wife! I got whole bunch of these buttons, so I'll try to share my love by using these pretty flairs wherever I can! (Right now, you can get 15% off any purchase from her store by using coupon: CB15) I know that she's releasing EIGHT sets tomorrow, including DELUXE ones (see sneak peek pic below... they are SUPER CUTE!) - so make sure that you go check it out!)

Unity has also been having some AMAZING DEALS going on their blog! They are having GROWING PAINS SALE - and the prices are about 50% off of what you normally can get! Right now, they have 2 sets of Melody Ross stamp bundles available, and I know that TONIGHT - they will be having Christy Tomlinson background stamps on sale from 8-10 pm Central time! Don't miss it!

Another thing that I'll be sharing today is the new theme over at Paper Issues! I know I don't mention too much about it on my blog, but that's where I satisfy most of my paper craft supplies addiction. I belong on their Creative Team, and it's so much fun! They've got an Etsy store, and it's constantly changing (weekly, even sometimes daily!) so make sure you go back there often! You can use couponmodpaperieto get 20% off EVERYTHING in the store!

Anyway, so a new linky theme begins today over on their blog with a new theme and a blog hop! Be sure to visit my fellow members for their amazing inspirational projects! Then, if you have any projects that you may want to share using any flair, leave some love over on their blog for your chance to win MORE flairs from {a flair for buttons} (Use coupon: ILOVEPAPERISSUES to get 10% off her store) ... link up any of your flair projects for a chance for your project to get featured over on their blog!

Oooh, and before I let you go today - have you seen the latest SVG Cuts' Spooky Cuties SVG collection? It's the FREEGIFT of the week, so make sure that you get it! I've been wanting to play with them so bad, along with the other kits from the past couple of weeks... if you have noticed, my eclips wasn't working properly, so I couldn't cut anything! (Yes, that's like the END of MY LIFE! It's exactly how I felt!) However, Sizzix was super helpful and was able to send me out a replacement machine right away! So, just got it up and working yesterday, so I will now definitely play!

Anyway, I think that's it!

I won't take up too much of your precious weekend, since I'm so nice! :)

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Today, I have a special post to share with you - I'm a guest designer over at Sweet Stamp Shop today! Yay! I was so excited when I was sent this fabulous Cherry Blossoms stamp set!

It's been quite the Japanese inspiration week for me... (if you haven't seen my project from last week - see here!) and not that either Unity or Sweet Stamp Shop knew that I was half Japanese, but they sent me Japanese ones to play with! Coincidence!

Luckily, I had also acquired some Japanese papers from My Little Shoebox, so I had some pretty papers to work with for this project.

I decided to make two things... a bag and a fan! I stumbled on this set for a while... wanting to make something different!

Cute, isn't it?

For the bag, I used this kit from SVG Cuts, and I paper pierced lanterns from the stamps and used to embellish the bag. My girl loved the bag, and it's sitting by her bed tonight, as she's already claimed it hers :)

As you can see, I used foam tape to bring out the lanterns, added buttons and twine to give dimension and interest. The quote is so pretty - and so inspiring!

For the fan, when I first had this 'a-ha' moment, I wasn't sure it would turn out. But, I think that it turned out pretty darn cute! I took 12" wide by 3.5" high paper, and I stamped all over it. I used white pen to color in the blossoms. Then, on my scoreboard, I scored at 0.5" intervals and pleated it. I adhered thin wooden dowel sticks to back of each pleat, and gathered the dowels at the bottom and used heat glue gun to adhere one on top of each other.

It's super easy and makes a pretty decor!

I hope that you liked my project today, and wanted to thank Sweet Stamp Shop for having me as their guest designer! It was fun to have had the opportunity to play with their stamps! I'd love it if you can go over to their blog and leave some love for me :)

Friday, September 14, 2012

Whoa - it's gonna feel so good to be able to sleep in a bit!
Never realized how crazy it would be to have a Grade 5er, Kindergartener and a Preschooler... with classes all starting and ending at different times! I do get a 'bit' of time to myself though... but not enough for me to sit and create something. I feel like my life revolves around the clock right now.

For all the new Unity fans - you'll notice that there's several different challenges going on at once! There's the Kit of the Month Challenge (which starts on the 1st), there's link up for Friends with Flair Fridays (every week) and this - which ALWAYS start on the 15th, and always have a theme. Not to mention all the challenges going on over at the Ippity blog, and there's occasional challenges running over on Unity Facebook wall as well!

So - I got to pick a theme for the challenge... and guess what I chose? PENNANTS and BANNERS!

Yippee!!! They are like my favorite things right now... along with canvas, burlap, doily, rosettes, washi tape, wooden chips... lol...

For my project, I decided to take my fave alphabet stamps, and decided to make a little Halloween banner that you can set on your party table! I was gonna do a card, or a layout... but just felt like being different! I also wanted to let you know that ANY type of project is okay for the challenge - as long as it uses Unity stamps.

Here are the pics!

I decided to go backwards today, and show you all the close ups first before showing you the whole thing!

Don't you just LOVE these papers, too? It's the Lost and Found Halloween Collection from My Mind's Eye, and kraft Funday Everyday Fun papers... just can't get enough of it!

I love the black canvas! I inked it up with off white ink to make it a little 'worn'.

As you can see, I've added banners on top of the pennants to bring out the letters :)

Just loving these half rosettes... always have made them round, but here, round was just a 'bit' much, so half was perfect!

I hung this banner on a wooden dowel covered with washi tape, and stuck it inside one of those Starbucks coffee drink jars (yeah, I keep them... kinda scary to see how many of these I've drank!) and filled it up with rice.

Wednesday, September 12, 2012

Welcome to one amazing blog hop today! We've been so excited about this new release over at Unity!! I came across paper from My Little Shoebox (MLS), just over a couple of years ago, and I just fell in love with their CUTE graphics. Unfortunately, I can't find any stores in my city that carries them, so I've not been able to play with them as much as I would've liked to...

However, MLS has been so generous to let all our Unity gals play with these amazing papers, and we had so much fun!

You should be coming from Stephanie's blog , but here's a list in case you get lost! (Yeah, it IS A LONG HOP, but it's all worth it!)

I condensed them for you so you can see it all in one place! Click here to get to the shop!
Aren't they the CUTEST stamps ever???

Anyway, I just fell in love with those two Japanese girls {you're my bestie}... probably because I'm half Japanese :) So, I made cute little boxes with them!

I made the take out box using SVG Cuts' file from here, and the treat cone, also from SVG Cuts - click here. They are so simple to assemble, and it was just perfect for these stamps!

Take-out box is so practical - you can fill it up with candies, a cupcake, fortune cookies... whatever your little heart desires that you wanna give to your bestie :) The cone is cute if you stuff some candies in a cone shaped clear bag, or in this case, I added some chopsticks, and I thought that it was cute!

The take-out box is using old MLS collection, called Oasis, and the cone is the current line - Cherry Delight.

These girls are SO LOVABLE!!!

Here's the cone upclose! I must say that I quite love the gathered satin ribbon at the top! I just took a ribbon, bunched up a bit at a time and glued it down onto a double sided tape, and then, adhered to the inside of the cone. The rolled up flowers are a part of the Cherry Delight collection :) The cherry blossom branch is from here.

Hope you liked my project!

Okay, I have one BONUS card to show ya... this was made before I got the new papers (I still used MLS papers though!), so I made a simple card using the Love Tiles. ;)

I used the background {bestie} stamp for this as well... and it's special because I can read it all! So you wanna know what it says?

'I want to be with you. You are my friend. Happiness is... that you are my friend. I really like you a lot. We were meant to be.'

... and then it repeats again. Isn't that the cutest sentiment stamp?

I bet now that you want these stamps REAL BAD! Make sure to comment on EACH of the participating blogs for your chance to win some amazing prizes!

Alrighty - before I let you go... of course, I have to ENABLE ya! (just a bit!)

...AND it's Mr and Mrs Unity's 18th YEAR WEDDING ANNIVERSARY SALE!!! That means that 18 kits will be marked down to $9.99 each, as well as 18 itty bittys will be marked down to $3.29. Be sure to go check that out!

Amazing cutter.

Fun digital/cutting files!

Miss Tiina.

My Grafico.

Just a little bit 'bout me.

Well... HELLO! Thank you for stopping by!
I reside in Calgary, AB (Canada) with 3 kids (10, 6 and 4)and a hubby. They keep me busy), REALLY BUSY! But, if I'm lucky - I do sneak away and get some crafting time in! Otherwise, my paper magic happens during the night :)
Feel free to leave me your love here, and feel welcome to use any of my original ideas for your personal use. All I ask is that you give credit appropriately and that you don't copy or re-create any of the artwork posted on here for submissions to contests, publications or for profit. Please link to this blog for any projects/ideas inspired by me. I hope to get to know all of you, and inspire many creative people out there.
Thanks:)